About eighteen years ago I was first taken with nervous prostration. I was confined to my bed nine months. In that time, I was not able to sit up at all, and saw no one but my husband, my mother, and the physician. I also suffered from severe stomach trouble, and a very sore spine, the end of the spine being curved out and hook shaped. I also had chronic constipation and other serious troubles. I tried medicine, electricity, massage, and was on the operating table at two different times. I could not read, write, or sew: sometimes I tried to do a little work, but would be obliged to give up and go to bed. I was so melancholy, so despondent all the time, it seemed is if I certainly would lose my mind. My physicians were very patient and kind, and they did every thing in their power to relieve me.
I was under the physician's care continually for eight years, the last two and one half months being in a private hospital in Chicago; and it was while there that I lost all faith in doctors and medicine, and felt that there was no one to go to for help but God. My constant prayer was that God might spare my life, that I might be well and able to care for my family, and that He would show me the right way to live. I know that my prayers were answered. There being no perceptible improvement in my condition, I was taken home, and it was only a few days later when I was told of Christian Science, and, with no understanding and no faith in it whatever, I began taking treatment. In a very short time I began to improve. My healing was very slow, but gradually my ailments disappeared as my understanding of God as Love grew clearer. I had no treatment for the chronic constipation or the sore spine, these disappeared after I was healed of other ailments. I wish to state that at one time it was thought a portion of the spine would have to be removed, but later it was decided not to do so, on account of my weak condition. I can truthfully say that it is now entirely healed.
It is eleven years since I first heard of Christian Science, and for nine years I have been able to do my own housework and most of my sewing. We have had no medicine in the house in that time and have used no material remedies whatever. Many demonstrations have been made, all proving that Christian Science is the truth,— the truth that makes one free.
